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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Kitchen Adventures

Remember how I said
I’m not much of a cook? Like I tend to just dump things in together, flavors I
like and just hope it turns out well. In my opinion, that
really isn't cooking, whether it involves an oven or not, but defines
how I “cook”. Well, I found this amazing web siteEmily Bitesand well… anyone can follow a recipe
right? HaHaHa right….

Therecipecalls for two types of cheese, I don’t
think I had even heard of one of them. I just figured only using cheddar would
work . The problem, is that I had a block of cheddar cheese and no cheese
grater. From experience, I do know that trying to melt a solid block of cheese
to use in a sauce, wont turn out the best. So, I improvise… I use my veggie
peeler! It was quite funny peeling my cheese block and it took forever needless
to say. In addition, I figured I could just use penne and fresh spinach….
Right? How much of a difference is there between elbow macaroni vs. penne and
fresh baby spinach vs. frozen chopped spinach? It’s all going into a baked
dish, there shouldn't be an issue. Well,cookedfresh spinach probably would be fine,
the recipe even said it would be. Do you think I read that part of the recipe?
Nope. Did I cook the spinach, prior to adding it in? Nope. It still
worked, righhhhttttt....

So, I start cooking,
needless to say I have no idea what four cups of cooked pasta is, so I just
made the entire box. No biggie. Then not thinking at all, I started making the
cheese sauce, before the penne was actually finished cooking, oops! I thought
the recipe would include cook the pasta as a step in the directions. Well, I
guess cooked in bold in the ingredient list was enough of an indication. Yeah…
no. (I’m book smart people, common sense could use some massive improvement).

Being my first time
making cheese sauce, I had visions of burning it. I thought it was going to
burn like almost fully melted chocolate burns after three seconds too long in
the microwave.(Yes, I know you
should melt chocolate in a double boiler, but that’s not my point). So, I kind
of puttzed around till it was finished cooking. Did I mention I have little
patience when it comes to cooking?

Shockingly enough it
did not burn, separate or boil while waiting for the pasta to finish cooking.

I took four full
scoops with my 1-cup measure and put it in the bowl with the fresh uncooked
spinach and cheese sauce. The problem is that four cups of cooked penne
is a smaller amount than four cups of cooked elbow macaroni…. It’s an
insult to my education I did not realize this HA! Therefore, I just dump
the rest of the cooked penne into to the mix.

I mix it all
together and realize my sauce must have gotten too hot because it was very
thin, not really bonding everything together. I’m not too sure, how I’m
going to mold this mixture to fit into a muffin tin.

First off look at
one piece of penne it longer than the bottom width of the muffin tin, do you
think I realized this… nah. I tried to fill the muffin tins. Well,
each muffin looked like it was filled with three ping pong balls, meaning
nothing was bonded or mixed together, the sauce pooling at the bottom, penne
coming out in all directions, tons of open air pockets, nothing staying in the
formed mold. Pretty much a mess.

This was just really
frustrating, I now had a muffin pan I had to wash, find another pan to cook
this in and wait to until it cooked.(I
don’t have a dish washer and I had almost a full sink of dishes from this
recipe already… I was a little over it)Needless
to say, I was hungry, over the entire thing, mad my kitchen was messy and that
it was past 7pm. But I still had to cook it…somehow.

So, I ditch the
whole portion control concept and grab my 9x13 Pyrex pan and decide to just
make this a pan of baked mac & cheese. It all fit in the pan too! It
still really wasn't sticking together but it was better than what it
looked like in the muffin tins. I’m thinking to make it more like traditional
baked mac & cheese, I added breadcrumbs to the pan, then take a spoon
to try and evenly spread out the breadcrumbs. It looks ok,minus the occasional spinach leaf
sticking straight up.

Thinking I didn’t
tweak the recipe too much so, I was going to follow the cooking instructions as
indicated. Well, after those 15 minutes, it looked just like it did when I put
it in the oven, so I let it cook longer, checking on it. Not really much
happens so after about 35 minutes, I take it out because I’m worried about it
burning and it not being edible.

Well, after about a
two and a half hour long process it turned out pretty damn good! Crispy pieces
on the top and quiche like in the middle. YUM! Of course, I did not portion it
out in 12 servings and I certainly ate more than one "serving" but
ughh it was good!I may have
eaten half the pan that night.

So, yeah I’m driving
blind when it comes to cooking but it turned out good. And yes, I do realize
this prolly isn’t as daunting or funny to you, but it complete defines my
personality in the kitchen! A little hap-hazard but the results are usually
better than expected!

Lesson learned:
There is a reason recipes indicate specific ingredients. If you follow the
recipe, it turns out pretty good without all the head aches and extra dishes!
In addition it helps to READ the recipe.

*** I have made this
recipe again, sticking to my original detours but I used frozen chopped
spinach. It’s necessary because it helps the sauce bind with the pasta and make
its quiche-esk.

Directions:1. Pre-heat the oven to 400. Lightly mist a
9x13 baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.2. In a small sauce pot, melt the butter
over medium heat. Add the flour, mixing it into the butter until thick. Stir in
the milk and garlic and raise the temp to bring the mixture to just under a
boil. Add the cheese and whisk mixture together until thoroughly
melted/combined into a cheese sauce. 3. Remove the cheese sauce from heat and
then mix in the egg and egg white (binding agents) until combined.4. In a large bowl, combine the pasta,
spinach, cheese sauce, salt, pepper, McCormick pinch perfect, and ¼ c of the
bread crumbs and mix. Once combined, put into the prepped baking pan.

5.
After in the pan, take the other ¼ c of bread crumbs and sprinkle on the top6. Bake for 15-25 minutes until the tops
slightly brown.